Life Is Like An Hourglass Glued To the Table
by Gretel-the-Dragon
Summary: I've decided to revamp this story and give it a bit of a new flavor. When Private receives a letter from a relative he doesn't remember anything about, he drags the whole team thousands of miles to meet them. It's all fun and games to start with, and long awaited reunion for family, but tragedy strikes often when your guard is at its lowest point. Humanized, details within.
1. Chapter 1

**(Hey, guys, I know that it's been a long while since I've been on here with anything, and I thought I might fix that by trying to revamp some of my older stuff. I think I've really gotten better with my characters' development and I wanted to give this new take a chance. It's humanized in this version, but if anyone's not up for that, I've been working on another version where they're all in their original forms, and I will post it upon request. It is mostly the same aside from the fact that they're all animals in the other version and might need to take an extra precaution at the beginning to avoid being spotted. Please enjoy~)**

Life's Like An Hourglass

One

Private smiled a little as he looked down at the lightly folded piece of paper he was holding in his hands. The torn envelope lay discarded on the edge of the table off to one side of the HQ.

"What've you got there, Private?" Skipper glanced up from his newspaper at the sound of the boy's quiet laughter.

"Oh, nothing Skippah. Just a letter from my aunt, apparently."

The commanding officer quirked a brow slightly. "What do you mean by 'apparently'? It's either a letter from your aunt or it isn't." He looked back down at his paper.

"No, it's just… I don't recall having ever met her, is all. Her name's Abigail, and I guess she was my mum's sister."

"That's nice." Skipper flipped a page distractedly.

"She wants me to come and visit."

Skipper looked up again. "Visit? You've never met the woman. You don't even know if that's really from a relative of yours. It could be just another one of Dr. Blowhole's insidious plots to undo our entire operation."

"Well… The name might sound a little familiar, in the back of my mind. Maybe my Uncle Nigel mentioned her a time or two?" Private read the letter over again. "She says she'd really like to see me… What if it _is_ from an aunt I don't remember, and not from Blowhole? If I don't reply or come to see her, I could really hurt her feelings, or make it seem like I don't care about her at all."

"Jeez… Where are you going to find the free time to go see her? Our training schedule's packed tight for a long while now, you know that. And you're too young yet to be wandering around by yourself. Besides, I think Kowalski and Rico will agree with me when I say there's no way we're all going to go sit in some broad's cottage out on the coast somewhere."

Private's gaze rose a little from the words on the page. "She doesn't live in a cottage, and I'm turning seventeen next month."

Skipper sighed. "That still doesn't address the issue of the lack of free time in our schedule. We can't all just drop training for however long, pack up our things, and go walk into what I'm ninety-nine percent sure is a trap."

"We wouldn't have to stop training to visit her." He looked back down to the letter, folding it back up as neatly as it'd come to him. "She lives full time on a military base, Antarctica." He tapped the tabletop twice with the folded up paper before gesturing to Skipper with it. "She got permission for us to do some training up there, get a little look around. She was talking to Uncle Nigel and he mentioned you, Kowalski, and Rico when she asked what had become of me. She thought, from the sound of you, that you'd like all that classified nonsense about the place."

Skipper still looked a little skeptical. "I don't know… How would we even get all the way down there? It's not like we've got a North Atlantic cruiser parked out in the harbor waiting for us."

"We're leaving in the morning," Private said as he set the letter down on the table. "She's sending someone to pick us up in Central Park. I wrote her back from her first letter two days ago."

The older man shook his head slowly, hiding a small grin behind his copy of the New York Times. "I'll address the fact that you didn't ask permission and apparently deceived me, but that will have to wait 'til tomorrow. It's getting late now. Get some shut eye. Leave Kowalski and Rico's briefings to me. I'll tell them when they get back from recon." He wouldn't admit it, but he kind of liked the sounds of that classified business Private had mentioned, trap or not. Besides; it would be nice to see a little action since things had been pretty quiet for a while.

Private smiled broadly. "Alright, Skippah. Sounds fine to me." He climbed up into his bunk, fluffing his pillow gently. "Who knows? We might even get a little fun out of it.

"Go to sleep," Skipper chuckled.


	2. Chapter 2

Two

Skipper peeked out from behind a tree to make sure there were no other people in sight. When he saw that the coast was clear, he motioned to the rest of his team to move out into the clearing. The four headed out into the open.

"I don't see anyone out here," Skipper mumbled to himself. "You're sure she said to meet the contact by the pond?" He kept himself on the lookout, still not convinced of how safe the whole situation was.

"Yeah, I'm sure of it. She—" He was cut of short by the sound of a sharp whistle piercing the air. A man stepped out from behind another tree nearby, lowering two fingers from his mouth.

"Name's Todd." The man had a distinctively English accent. He pointed to the youngest looking member of the quartet. "You're James?"

Private nodded once. "People just call me Private, usually."

The stranger came closer, circling the group of men. "Fair enough. So _you're_ Abby's nephew, then…" He stopped in front of Private.

"You know my Aunt Abigail."

Todd snickered. "Abigail? She won't take too kindly to you if you call her that. Even if you are her nephew. No, no, she prefers to be called Abby, or Captain Pennington."

Kowalski's eyebrows went up. "Captain Pennington?"

"Yeah, she was promoted… five months ago? Well-honored individual and all. Done a lot for her unit. Anyhow, is everyone ready to go here?"

"How are we getting all the way down to Antarctica from New York this time?" Skipper watched their 'guide' with a wary gaze. He still remembered that traitor Parker from the last time they got involved with someone's 'relative'.

Todd looked over to Skipper, noticing the well-trained eye watching his every move. "I've got a chopper incoming. We're to head down to the airport to intercept it. It's landing in a restricted section of the field, used for military personnel and government officials." He checked a small black watch around his left wrist. "Scheduled departure's in about fifteen minutes. Should give us plenty of time to make it to the field if we get right on it."

"By all means." Skipper met Todd's even gaze with one of his own. "Lead the way."

Todd immediately turned and headed of toward the airport, slipping his hands into his pockets. Skipper frowned a little and leaned over to Kowalski.

"Keep an eye out on the rear, Kowalski," he whispered. "Don't need any unsuspected surprises sneaking up on us." With that, he took off in pursuit of Private, who was already half way around the pond with Todd. Kowalski and Rico exchanged a look before they followed Skipper.

It didn't take the five long at all to reach the airport. They all showed off their passports and their guide flashed a permit in front of some guards to access the restricted part of the airfield. Todd led them out onto the open airfield towards a Blackhawk in the far left corner. He checked his watch as he ran.

"And we still have thirty seconds to spare! Isn't that nice?" He hopped into the helicopter as the engine was started, followed closely by the other four men. Once everyone was secure inside, he hit the back of the pilot's seat twice and called, "Alright! Take us up Cole."

The pilot had to shout a little to be heard over the roar of the engine. "Up we go! Everyone fasten your seatbelts and hold on tight!" A hand cloaked in a black glove pressed buttons and pulled levers all over the control panel and cockpit. "Any of you blokes ever flown in one of these things before?"

Kowalski stuck his head out the open door as the helicopter started rising up off the ground, gulping quietly. "No, not really." His voice came out as a somewhat strained whisper. Todd reined him in a little in order to close the doors safely.

"Well, don't worry about that. You've got the best pilot known to all of Antarctica sitting here in the cockpit." A man identical to Todd looked back over his shoulder with a grin. "Cole D'Lacey, reporting for duty!"

"I think we'd all appreciate it if you'd quit bragging and keep your eye on the skies, kid." Todd swatted the back of Cole's head before heading to his spot in the co-pilot's chair. He buckled himself in, fending off an attack from Cole.

"Who're you calling a bloody kid, Todd? I'm no younger than you are!" He gave a final tap to his brother's shoulder before replacing both hands on the controls. "Besides, I have the bloody right to show off a little, now don't I?" The helicopter left the airfield and headed south.

A few minutes later, Todd looked back over his shoulder. "We have reached cruising altitude; you can now feel free to move about the cabin. Just try not to get too rowdy, alright boys?"

Kowalski held on to his seatbelt a little tighter. "I'm good."

"Afraid of heights?" Cole gave a crooked smile.

"Just a little."

Todd elbowed Cole a little, leaning closer. "Go easy on the loop-de-loops, Cole."

Kowalski went a little green. "Joy."

Skipper looked over to Todd. "So you know this Abi— I mean, Captain Pennington?" Cole glanced from the controls to Skipper and back.

"Who, Abby?"

"Yeah. You know her too, I take it?"

Cole nodded a bit. "Yeah, my wife Sasha bunks with her and two others and she's a good friend of mine. Why?"

"This is Abby's nephew's unit, Cole." Todd faced forward again as his brother looked back.

"_Really._" Cole looked to Private. "You must be the Private James she's been looking forward to seeing." He forced himself to face forward again. "Well, I can honestly say it's a pleasure to have you aboard. Maybe now that I've actually met you, I'll get her to stop chewing my damn ear off every five minutes talking about how much you've probably grown and all that."

"What can you tell me about her..?" Private looked down at the letter he'd brought with him. "All I really know about her is her name, she's my mum's sister, and she's a captain who lives on this military base we're going to."

Todd put on a headset with a microphone attachment. "Well, you'll have plenty of time to get reacquainted with her once we get to where we're going. All I'll tell you is that she seems to be missing you a lot lately." He checked the time again on his watch. "Feel free to catch a few Z's. We've got a nice long trip ahead of us, and take it from me; it's good to catch up on sleep whenever possible."

Skipper highly doubted that he'd be falling asleep any time soon on a flight that was still potentially being flown by enemy agents, but he laid his head back a bit and shut his eyes. He left them open a little in case he had to intercept any sneak attacks, of course. "Thanks for the tip."


	3. Chapter 3

Three

Private rubbed his eyes a bit, just waking up from a nice little nap. He looked around and saw Kowalski still holding tight to his seat, Rico looking out the window, and Skipper fast asleep on the other side of the cabin.

"We'll be landing soon, kid." Todd grinned a bit as he held out a bottle of water to Private. "Have a nice sleep?"

Private took the bottle, yawning a bit as he unscrewed the lid. "Yeah. Thanks, by the way." He took a swig of the cool liquid. "I _was_ getting a mite parched."

Cole turned on his headset. "Red One to base, we're coming in for a landing soon, about five miles out at the moment. Just calling in to confirm that our landing pad's clear, yeah?" It took a few seconds for him to receive a reply.

"Base to Red One, you are cleared for landing, have a safe ride in. See you soon, darling."

Cole shook his head slowly before he said, "Love you, see you soon." With that, he turned his mic back to its neutral setting and put both hands back on the controls. He noticed the look his brother was giving him and rolled his eyes a bit. "Oh, come off it. I haven't seen her in three bloody days. She misses me."

"I wasn't asking," Todd said as he raised his hands in front of his chest in surrender.

Cole took the helicopter down a bit more the closer they got to the base. "Hey, you might want to wake your friend up." He motioned over to Skipper. "I'm taking her down."

Rico nudged Skipper's shoulder, mumbling something unintelligibly. Skipper opened one eye and looked at him.

"I'm awake."

A few minutes later Cole set the Blackhawk down on what appeared to be a stretch of open ice. It looked like there was nothing around for miles. Skipper saw this out the window and got an uneasy feeling in his stomach.

"Settle down, chief," Todd piped up, looking back at Skipper. He pressed a red button at the center of the control panel. "Can't just have a whole military base sitting right out there on the open tundra, now can we?"

It only took a few seconds before the ground shook a little. A circular section of ice about thirty feet long and twenty feet wide started lowering down. Skipper watched through the window as they were lowered down into the underground base.

There were military personnel of all ranks milling about inside. The landing pad stopped descending and the hole in the roof closed up. Todd unbuckled himself and climbed back with the four passengers to open the doors.

"Welcome to Sector 3-A of Arctic Command, gentlemen." He hopped down out of the helicopter. "Go right ahead, unbuckle yourselves and step on down."

Cole took off his headset and came out as well. "Hope you all considered it a nice flight and all, but I've got to be going. You're all sticking around for a little while at least, aren't you?"

Skipper nodded as he followed the other three members of his team down out of the hawk. "Not sure how long, but at least a day or two."

"Pleasure to make your acquaintances, gentlemen." Cole smiled brightly as he held a gloved hand out to each of the men in turn, Skipper last of all.

"We'll see you around, Cole," Todd said as he patted his brother on the back. "Tell Sasha I said hi."

Cole waved a bit as he headed off towards the other end of the base.

"Well." Todd looked from his brother's retreating back to the quartet. "This is where our paths diverge, for now. Your tour guide should be here shortly. She knows you're arriving about now. Personally, I've got to go take care of my own business. Didn't know I'd be having to co-pilot for my brother until this morning, and I've got a big pile of paperwork to turn in by eight tonight." He checked his watch. "That's only an hour from now."

Skipper nodded. "We'll be fine on our own for a little while. Go right ahead."

Todd gave a little salute as he turned to head down to his own room. "Maybe I'll see you all in the Mess Hall for supper. Not sure if I'll even get the chance to make it back up."

"See you around, Soldier." Skipper looked around the Hangar. "Right, we—" He was cut off short by the sight of a young woman heading right for their group.

"Private James?" She fixed her chocolate brown eyes on Private, looking him over once.

A small smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. "It's been years since I've heard my real name so many times in one day. But yeah, I'm Private."

The girl checked her clipboard, mumbling to herself, "You're all here for a tour of the base, levels one through nine, training sessions in the mornings and after lunch, and to see Captain Pennington." She looked up from her papers, speaking more clearly. "Right. Where to first, then? Have you had dinner yet?"

"We just got here not three minutes ago," Skipper said.

"Well, then. You've gotta have something to eat. You've come a long way, if these papers are anything to go by. Manhattan, New York. Jeez." She turned and started walking away from the four of them. When she looked back and found that they weren't following, she shook her head a bit. "Well, come on. You're hungry, aren't you? You've all had a long flight, and there's no way I'm 'touring' you anywhere until you've all got a nice meal in you." She turned again and started walking.

Skipper looked from the woman to his unit and back before calling, "What's your name anyway?" She looked back at the boys with a smile.

"Esmeralda."

The four followed Esmeralda to the Mess Hall for dinner, listening as she told them where different halls, staircases, and passages led to.

"This is Level One. As you may have noticed, this big open area is the Hangar. It's kept on Level One in case of a need for mass evacuation and so it can be easily accessed. We're heading to the West Hall, where you'll be dining this evening." She opened the doors to the dining area using a remote strapped to a belt around her waist. "Let's say, thirty minutes for a dinner break?" She stopped and turned around to look at the four.

Skipper nodded. "Thirty minutes should be plenty."

"Good. I'll see you then; go ahead and help yourselves to anything you like." Esmeralda smiled and headed off to her usual table. "Feel free to come sit with me if you want."

The four of them grabbed something to eat and sat down at an empty table. Cole waved at them as he headed over toward them with a beautiful Russian woman at his side, a tray in either hand.

"'Ello, gents. Mind if we sit with you? Okay, thank you." He sat down without waiting for a reply, setting both the trays down on the tabletop. "Guys, this is my wife, Sasha. Sasha, these are the boys Todd and I flew in from New York today."

Sasha smiled. "It is very nice to meet you all."

"You bunk with my aunt, don't you?" Private paused a bit in the middle of raising a bite of food to his mouth.

"You must be Abby's nephew. It is especially nice to meet you. She has been talking about you constantly for the past few days since she found out that you would be coming to see her."

"Does she have a table that she usually sits at during meals?" He lowered his fork back to his plate.

Sasha laughed a little as she looked across the table at Private. "Abby does not usually eat dinner… or lunch, for that matter, if you don't drag her upstairs. She is always far too busy for trivial things like nutrients. Always too immersed in her work."

Private looked faintly disappointed. "Oh. That's alright, I guess. If she's working. Do you think she'll be too busy after we're done eating?"

"I doubt that she will ever be too busy for you. Besides," she said as she paused to take a bite of her food, "we have had a fairly safe week out on the field."

"That doesn't mean she's run out of projects to keep herself busy with, now does it? She keeps busier than a bee, that one, I swear. If she were ever to get a vacation day, she'd use it to find a bloody cure to the common cold or something." Cole took a drink of water. "She's going to kill herself from overexertion one of these days. Honestly, hasn't the woman ever heard of resting? They say that even God rested on the seventh day. But no, not her. She just keeps on going like a damn semi-truck."

"She sounds like she's got a good level of endurance about her." Skipper looked up from his plate a bit.

"She once worked for three days straight. No sleep, no food or water, and only ten minutes of break time, including the times she had to use the john." Cole laughed. "Hard to admit, but she's tougher than I am. I'd be bloody well past bitter if I'd gone without sleep for three days."

Rico whistled. "Wow."

"Yes, well, that is just the way that she is." Sasha looked down at her food with a somewhat melancholy smile. "Durable."


	4. Chapter 4

Four

It didn't take long before everyone was finished with their meals and putting their dishes where they belonged. Cole exchanged a little small talk with a man behind the counter, who the four New Yorkers assumed was the cook.

"Alright, Chevelle. See you tomorrow for breakfast, then." He turned from the counter to find Esmeralda coming towards them. "So you're the one they got to show the guys around the place, huh, Esmeralda?"

The girl smiled placidly. "Yeah, Cole. I'm their tour guide, and if you don't mind, I'd like to get to the actual guiding part of my job. I'm taking them down to see Abby. She's probably still down on Level Five, right?"

"Door Number Seven. See you tomorrow, Chickadee." Cole laughed a little as he and Sasha headed out of the Mess Hall.

"Come on, guys," Esmeralda said as she walked towards the doors. "Do you want to do the tour first, or go see Abby? She's probably still downstairs working."

"So we heard."

She glanced over at Skipper. "If I'm not mistaken, you're the head of the team, right? Where to?"

Skipper looked to Private. "I think the Private's waited long enough to see his aunt. She's pretty much the whole reason we're here in the first place, so I think it's high time we met the woman."

Esmeralda nodded. "Alright. To Level Five we go." She took them out of the Mess Hall to an elevator nearby. "Hop in."

The four did as they were told and she pushed the button with the number five on it. The doors closed and the car started descending slowly. When the doors opened, they were leading to a dimly lit hallway with four doors on the left and three doors on the right. Each door had a number between one and seven on it. Esmeralda led the four out of the elevator over to door number seven, taking a card from one of the pouches on her belt.

"Lab Seven." She swiped the card through a scanner to the left side of the door, level with the doorknob. The lock clicked loudly and she turned the handle. "Come on in, boys."

When Kowalski entered the lab, he suddenly felt like he had walked through the pearly gates into heaven. The walls were lined with all sorts of scientific studies, from different types of parasitic worms in jars, to shelves with vials of liquid in them labeled as vaccines for various illnesses and ailments. He shivered audibly, a look of pure bliss on his face.

"Daddy's home."

While Kowalski was ogling some of the various species of flatworm, Esmeralda went over to the only person in the lab, tapping the man on his shoulder.

"Hey, Perce. Have you seen Abby lately?"

Perce looked up from a microscope, still scribbling notes onto an already covered page of paper. He brushed some pale blonde locks back and removed his goggles from his face to reveal bright blue eyes. "She left before dinner, Esmeralda." The man spoke somewhat rapidly, but clearly.

Esmeralda looked confused. "Left? Why? Where was she going? She usually works 'till two in the morning here—"

"I guess that some injuries came in just before dinner." Perce finally flipped the page over and started scribbling symbols on the other side, glancing from Esmeralda to the page every now and again.

"Oh, jeez… Alright, come on fellas. She's not down here, she's two levels up." She turned back toward the door. "Are you coming?" she asked as she saw that Kowalski didn't seem to be following.

The tall man—staring dazedly at all the jars, samples, and microscopes—replied, "No, no. I think I'll stay down here with Mr..?"

"Uh, Pierce. Percy Pierce."

Kowalski nodded faintly as he reached for a glowing blue jar. "Y-Yes. Mr. Pierce. I think I'll stay down here with him, if it's alright."

Skipper rolled his eyes a little. "Yeah, yeah. It's fine Kowalski."

"You think you can find your room later if I give you the number?" Esmeralda asked, somewhat torn about leaving one member of the group behind.

"Sure, sure. I'll be—" Kowalski laughed as the liquid in the jar started pulsating with light when he picked it up. "I'll be quite alright down here!"

Esmeralda nodded slowly to herself while writing down the room number. "Perce, give him a hand if he loses his way." She held a hand up to hold back protests from either scientist. "I know you're probably perfectly capable of finding the room on your own, sir, but it's a big complex, and I'd feel awful if you got lost. I'm responsible for you four during your stay here." She opened the door to the hall. "See you later."

Skipper, Rico, and Private followed their guide back into the elevator and up to Level Three. The door opened this time into a bright white room, like the waiting area of a hospital. There were actually people milling about on this level, going from room to room with equipment and, in some cases, injured victims on stretchers.

"Is this the Infirmary?" Private inquired as he looked around quietly.

"Yeah. Come on." Esmeralda headed up to the Information Desk, where a blonde-haired woman was sitting, popping her bubblegum loudly as she checked her makeup in her compact for the eleventh time that night. "Ginny."

The woman looked up and grinned widely. "Esmeralda," she purred. "What a pleasant surprise."

"Is Abby on duty tonight?"

Ginny took out a nail file and fanned out her fingers, examining her long nails lazily. "Oh, yeah. She came in after the accident was reported. Squad Thirteen didn't know they were flying home on a sabotaged chopper. Lucky for them, they made it within three miles of the base before they were knocked out of the sky by a charge planted on the underbelly of the craft by some enemy agent or something."

"Lucky?" Esmeralda scoffed. "They're lucky to be alive, Ginny. Anyways, do you know what room she's in right now?"

Ginny looked up from her nails. "Who?"

"Hhh… _Abby_, Ginny. Do you know where _Abby_ is?"

The receptionist rolled her eyes a little. "Room One-Nineteen." She immediately went back to fixing her nails up. "I think she's with a patient, though."

Esmeralda paid no mind to the second part of what Ginny had said, having only really heard the room number. "Come on, kid. Your aunt's in Room One-Nineteen." She headed off into one of the branching hallways nearby, not even looking back to see if her group was actually following her this time.

Room One-Nineteen happened to be almost all the way at the end of the hall on the left side. Esmeralda went right on in without knocking. "Hey, Abby. There's someone here to see you."

"I'm with a patient right now," the woman said as she cut the thick black thread and tied off the stitches she'd been working on. "You might want to tell my visitor that it'd be better for them to come back later or something."

"Come on, Abby. You're really going to turn away your nephew after he flew thousands of miles to come see you? Harsh, but, I guess if that's what you want…" She turned, pausing a little so Abby could have a moment for the words to sink in.

"… James is here?"

Esmeralda nodded for a bit before she realized that Abby couldn't tell, since her back was to the doorway. "Yeah. Private's right out in the hall."

Abby was silent for a few seconds before she said, "Tell him that I'll be with him shortly. I just have a little business to finish up, and then I can take off for the night."

"Alright, Abby. I'll be sure to tell him." She headed back out of the room.

"Well?" Private looked to Esmeralda as she returned to the hall. "If she's too busy—"

She closed the door behind herself. "No, no. She said that she'd be with you shortly. She's going to finish up with her current patient and then she's going to check out for the night so you can spend a bit of time together."

The boy giggled somewhat excitedly. "I've been looking forward to this all day. I'm betting she tells good stories, like Uncle Nigel. And maybe she can tell me more about my mum and dad."

Skipper turned from the door to look at Private. "What do you mean by—"

The door to Room One-Nineteen opened with a quiet click and a woman in a white doctor's coat stepped out into the hall. A few stray strands of hair escaped her ponytail, hanging down on her forehead a bit. She tried to brush them back with one hand, but they immediately popped back into place. She appeared to be in her early thirties with blue eyes, under which there were faint shadows from nights spent in the labs on Level Five. She smiled a bit.

"James… Or, Private. It's just Private, right?"

Private smiled right back. "People usually just call me Private, but James is fine too. You're family."

Abby closed the door behind her as she came into the hall to join the four men. "I'm so glad you were able to make it. Did you have a nice flight in? No storm troubles or anything? I was a bit worried, because I'd heard there were chances of a whiteout earlier, and I didn't want you to get caught up in a bad storm because I'd asked you to come all the way out here."

Private shook his head. "No, it was a smooth flight, from what I can remember of it. I was asleep most of the trip, honestly."

"Oh, good. But still, I'm glad it all went well." She paused before she came forward and wrapped her nephew into a hug. "Boy, I've missed you." A gentle laugh escaped her as she released him. "And you probably don't even remember me."

Private rubbed his head a bit sheepishly. "I'll admit that my memory's… a bit fuzzy on the subject."

Abby nodded a bit. "Don't worry about that, it's to be expected, I guess. I haven't seen you since you were two years old."

"Well, you're here now," the young man said with a smile.

"You are just the sweetest little thing." Abby pinched one of his cheeks gently. "And Nigel tried telling me it was all 'just a part of the ruse'."

Skipper laughed. "Not so much, no."

The woman suddenly seemed to notice that there were other people there. "Where _are_ my manners?" She shook hands with Rico and Skipper. "I've had a long day, forgive me. You must be two of his teammates."

"Yeah, Kowalski got a little sidetracked down in the labs."

"They're a wonderful place to spend time, I can relate."

Esmeralda raised an eyebrow. "If everyone let you, you'd stay down there for days, so yes; I'm sure you can relate."

Abby swung her bag up over her shoulder, shaking her head slowly with a grin. "You know it. But, hey. You guys are on a tour, right? If you want to go on with that, I'm good with that. I know my way around less than half the entire base, myself, and I've been here for seven years."

"Seven years?" Skipper asked incredulously. "How old are you? You don't look old enough to have been here for seven years."

She turned to follow Esmeralda down the hall, calling back to Skipper, "Don't you know that it's impolite to ask a woman her age? Now come on. I've gotta drop something off on our way, if we're still going on that tour."


	5. Chapter 5

Five

"Alright. Well you've seen Levels One, Three, and Five already. Level One is mostly the Hangar and the Mess Hall. Level Three is the Infirmary, and Level Five is the level where the Labs are located. We're currently heading to Level Two, the level where the dormitories are located. They are put on Level Two so that they are close enough to the surface for quick evacuation in an emergency, but there is also a level of protection in case of enemy infiltration." The elevator doors slid open and Esmeralda stepped out into a hall that extended more than a hundred yards either left or right. "Men's Dormitory's to the left, Women's Dormitory's to the right."

"I've got to drop my bag off in my room and check on one of my roommates. She's supposed to be in there for a while, but she has a bad habit of not resting up when she's supposed to. Esmeralda can show you where you'll be staying while I'm doing that, and then we can meet back up here in a little while to continue." Abby waved as she headed off down the East Hall.

Esmeralda nodded. "Tell her I said hi if she's in there, would you? She's been cooped up all by her lonesome." She turned from Abby and headed down the corridor in the opposite direction, talking as she went. "Alright. Just follow me down the West Hall here, and I can show you to room M-Thirty-Nine. There are four bunks in each room, and everything you'll need for your time spent in the base should be right there."

She took them half way down the hall to the room, left side, and opened the door with a key she pulled from a pouch on her belt. After she unlocked the door, she headed inside. There were two bunk beds, one on either side of the room. Each bunk was made up with identical sheets and blankets and pillows.

"You can all sort out who gets which bed on your own. Maybe you can decide that when the final member of your team decides to leave Lab Seven to grab some sleep or something. Does _he_ ever sleep at all?"

Skipper nodded a little as he looked around the room, checking under the beds and everything. "Yeah, we usually have a curfew so we can wake up bright and early, with the dawn. But sometimes he'll get up in the middle of the night without permission to work on some crazy bit of nonsense. He thinks I have no clue about it, but I know everything that goes on in my unit." He straightened back up from checking under the first set of beds and moved on to the second.

Leaning against one post of the doorway, Esmeralda grinned a bit. "You boys do a lot of training?"

"Yeah, of course."

"I think you'll like the next part of our tour, then. Level Four." She pushed away from the doorway and headed back out into the hall. "Come on out when you're ready."

Rico looked up as the girl left, watching Private's gaze trailing after her. "Private."

The boy tore his gaze away from the door to look at his friend. "Yeah, Rico?"

"Go talk."

It was hard to tell with all the feathers, but Private paled slightly. "Wha—Why? I don't have anything to ask her or talk to her about or anything, no questions or concerns about the trip or—"

"Go. Talk. Her."

Private shuffled his feet for a moment before he went out into the hall after Esmeralda. He wracked his brain for what he could possibly say to her. _I'll just thank her for the tour. Yeah. That should be fine._ He looked up from the ground as he almost bumped into her, stopping just in time.

"Oh, hi!" She smiled as the boy backed up a little. "Everything okay?"

Faltering slightly, Private said, "I—I thought I should come out and thank you. For the tour, I mean."

"Aw, thank you." When she blinked, Private could have sworn that her eyes sparkled. For a moment he just stood there, staring at her like an idiot.

_Great! I'm just staring at her now! I might as well be drooling with my tongue hanging out on the floor!_

"Y—You have a very unique name. Esmeralda." _What?_

She ducked her head a little. "My mother named me Esmeralda… Have you ever read or seen The Hunchback of Notre Dame?"

_I can't believe she's actually going with it_, Private thought as he shook his head a little. "I 've never had the pleasure of either. I've heard of it, though. Can't remember what it's about."

Esmeralda looked up at the ceiling. "I never read the book, but I watched the movie when I was a little girl. I'm sure it was different from the novel, but I was named after a character from the story." She glanced over at Private. "My mother always loved that book very much. The story, as I remember it, was about a man who was born misshapen. He was born to a very poor woman, and she was killed by a wicked man for being what she was; a gypsy. The man who killed her, Frollo, claimed to be a righteous man, a man of the church, and to wash the sin of her murder from his soul, he took the child in and raised him. He named the boy Quasimodo, which meant 'half-formed'.

"He kept the child in the bell tower of the church so no one would ever see him. He gave the boy food and water, and he was let to toll the bells and take care of them, polish them and fix them when they were damaged. He didn't have a friend in the world except for the gargoyles. That is, until he snuck out of the bell tower one day. He met a beautiful woman… She was a gypsy named Esmeralda, and he fell in love with her. She is the one I get my name from." She lifted the pendant of her necklace from where it rested on her chest; an odd symbol.

"Esmeralda!"

The girl turned to find Abby running down the hallway towards room M-Thirty-Nine. "Abby, is everything alright?"

"She's gone."

"What do you—She's gone?"

Abby looked pretty on edge. "Yes!"

"Well, just—Look, just calm down a little. Does anyone know where she—"

"Captain Donovan found it again."

It took Esmeralda a moment to process what Abby had said. She whispered, "_All_ of it?"

She nodded. "And Sasha said she was heading down to Level Four. I knew something was going on when she was awake this morning! She usually doesn't wake up until noon or later."

Skipper looked a bit confused. "Whoa, whoa, wait a minute. Is something wrong? Who's missing?"

Abby looked to Skipper. "One of my roommates, the one I went to check on. We need to get down to Level Four to do a little damage control." With that, she strode off towards the elevators.

"Jeez," Esmeralda said with a sigh. "Well, it was going to be our next stop anyhow."

"Where's the missing girl going?" Private asked as they followed the women again.

She looked up at the ceiling as they all got in the elevator. "She's going to Level Four." The elevator started going back down.

"What's on Level Four that's so important?"

The door opened to a floor with many doors lining the walls of the main area. In the middle of the main room there was an octagonal raised platform with a chain-link fence around the perimeter like you'd find at a UFC fight. All around, there were different areas offering different lessons anywhere from Archery to Mixed Martial Arts.

"Level Four: The Training Fields."


End file.
